Most people do not want to see President Trump convicted during the Senate impeachment trial, according to a new Gallup poll.
More than half of respondents reported that they did not want Trump removed from office, with 51% opposing conviction and 46% supporting the president’s removal. Democratic respondents were more likely to support convicting Trump, with 86% supporting his removal. Independents were split on the issue. Forty-nine percent of independents supported conviction, while 46% opposed his removal. Just 7% of Republican respondents supported convicting Trump.
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Approval for Trump’s conviction is higher than that of Bill Clinton. When Clinton’s impeachment was delivered to the Senate, just 33% supported his conviction and removal from office. The gap in support for conviction comes mostly from the partisan divide. Both presidents had minimal support for removal from within the party, but Clinton only had support for conviction from 65% of Republicans, compared to 86% of Democrats supporting Trump’s removal.
The chaotic impeachment process began in September, but since then, Trump’s approval rating has remained steady. The poll revealed that Trump sits at 44% approval, dipping just one percentage point since the House passed the articles of impeachment. His current approval rating also shows a full recovery from his approval rating drop in September, when just 39% approved of his job performance.
The Senate is expected to begin its impeachment trial on Tuesday, but it is not yet clear what that process will look like. Some centrist Republicans, such as Maine Sen. Susan Collins, have shown interest in hearing from other witnesses before the final conviction vote, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he wants an expedited trial.
The national survey, released Monday, is based on telephone interviews with 1,014 adults and was conducted Jan. 2-15, 2020. The margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
